Tag archive for » animal rights «

My chocolate Labrador has a fierce protector in me when it comes to making sure he is happy and healthy. Massages, cooking his food, hydrotherapy are all activities that I have partaken in to ensure his health. Crazy – some may say, but as any animal lover knows animals are sentient beings and one look into the big soulful brown eyes of my chocolate lab is all the proof I need. But who proves to be protectors of the animals within our food system, our research laboratories, or entertainment industries?

The Animal Legal Defense Fund steps up to provide the legal defense of the rights of these animals. The right to a happy healthy life for an animal is pretty ambiguous and many would argue not a right at all. However, the ALDF is at the heart of defining what those rights are case after case.

The illegal shooting of feral burros in California by the U.S. Navy was stopped by the ALDF and Animal Protection Institute (API) in 1981.

They prevented the exportation of 71,500 rhesus monkeys from Bangladesh to the United States for medical and scientific research.

They brought attention to the plight of factory farming veal calves, patenting genetically engineered farm animals, and using sick and disabled animals in the food supply.

They are also the leading defenders in animal cruelty cases, like the animal hoarding case in North Carolina where 300 dogs were found on the property of Barbara and Robert Woodley. These are just some of the cases that ALDF has worked on in the past thirty years – there are many more. They are a tireless organization working in defense of animals and I encourage you to visit their website and learn more about them.

Locavores

The Slow CookWe are engaging the concerns of a hungry planet–slowly–right here in our kitchen garden in the District of Columbia, one mile from the White House.

Bethesda Cares and Full Plate Ventures launched Farm to Freezer this summer with support from a diverse network of volunteers, Churches’ donated kitchen space, and businesses. Bethesda Cares’ meals manager who cooks a hot lunch for 40-70 each day uses the